Alcohol and Health: Personalized Feedback

Heavy episodic drinking (HED) among college students remains a concern within the U.S., as
rates of HED are still high in this population. Though a variety of brief motivational
interventions for alcohol use in college students have demonstrated significant effects,
these effects are often small and not consistently maintained over time. Personalized
feedback interventions (PFIs) are a particularly promising approach, as these are often
acceptable to college students, as well as low-cost, and easy to disseminate. Though
presentation of interperson discrepancy via descriptive and injunctive norms has shown
consistent effects within PFIs and received much attention in the literature, intraperson, or
ideal-actual self discrepancies, has largely been ignored. Drawing from cognitive dissonance
theory, self-regulation theory, and motivational interviewing, the current study aims to
evaluate the efficacy of an alcohol PFI with a values component to incorporate ideal-self
discrepancy into a typical intervention.